With all respect to the writing skills of the judges at the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals[2], it would be hard to describe many of their opinions as entertaining reads. Such is not the case with the court’s ruling last week in the case of Jerry Lee Bustos v. A&E Television Networks.

The case centers around the defamation claims of Bustos, an inmate at the Supermax[3] prison in Florence, who says A&E did him wrong by calling him a member of a white supremicist gang on a documentary-ish program it ran on The History Channel called “Gangland: Aryan Brotherhood.”[4] Bustos was adamant that he wasn’t an Aryan Brotherhood[5] member and that A&E’s labeling of him as one had caused him all kinds of trouble, including threats from foes of the gang who now thought he was a member and threats from members of the gang upset that he had been described as a member when he wasn’t.

“Despite his best efforts, he just can’t convince his fellow prisoners that he’s not actually a member of the Aryan Brotherhood,” 10th Circuit Judge Neil Gorsuch wrote in the opinion (PDF)[6].

So Bustos sued A&E for defamation, a claim the district court dismissed because, even though Bustos wasn’t an Aryan Brotherhood member, he was close enough. Gorsuch and two of his colleagues upheld the district court’s decision last week in a published opinion — a move that means Bustos’s travails have now become part of America’s case law.

It’s how the 10th Circuit arrives at its conclusion that is so much fun.

The opinion is filled with witticisms, clever hypotheticals, intriguing details about prison life and generally enjoyable recountings of events. Take, for instance, the judges’ description of how Bustos actually had collaborated with the Aryan Brotherhood:

In a conspiracy ultimately detected and disrupted by prison officials, Mr. Bustos agreed to receive balloons filled with heroin from a prison visitor; insert them into his body; and then pass them along to three prison gangs, including the Aryan Brotherhood. When things went awry, Mr. Bustos found himself — balloons and all — locked in solitary confinement. After this delay upset certain intended recipients, Mr. Bustos sent a handwritten apology to an Aryan Brotherhood leader. The note — which refers to the leader repeatedly as “bro” — explains the situation and promises the balloons will soon be on their way.

Interestingly, on their journey through defamation law, the judges reject the idea that someone could be so scummy as to be “libel-proof” and instead focus on the truth of the claim about the person. In that light, Bustos’s case falls short, the judges write.

(H)aving willingly helped the Brothers flout prison security measures as part of a criminal conspiracy, it’s a few years too late to take a principled stand against their agenda. To the extent reasonable persons would find the views and practices of the Brotherhood abhorrent — and surely they would — they would also be appalled that Mr. Bustos has given that group his aid and comfort, risking administrative and criminal sanction to help their cause.

The folks at the Rocky Mountain Appellate Blog[8] note that Bustos is probably troubled by this reasoning[9] because he likely doesn’t much care about what “reasonable persons” think. He’s instead more concerned about what other inmates think, since that’s who would visit harm upon him because of A&E’s inaccurate claim. Calling him a Brotherhood member when he’s just a close associate may not seem like a big difference to you or me, but it is certainly a big deal to an Aryan Brotherhood member in Supermax.

Here, though, the judges conclude that Bustos is out of luck. Defamation doesn’t apply to things that matter only to “insular groups,” Gorsuch writes.

“While the statement may cause you a world of trouble,” Gorsuch writes in a line surely coming soon to a law school term paper near you, “while it may not be precisely true, it is substantially true. And that is enough to call an end to this litigation as a matter of law.”